a rather short chapter because school.

“If I told you that you were right, what would you do?” Myungsoo asked slowly, choosing his words wisely.

                “I wouldn’t do anything,” Sungyeol shrugged, blocking the sun from coming into his eyes, “because I know I’m right.”

                The younger boy slowly brought his tongue over his lips, thinking about what to say or even what to do. He was lost, and there wasn’t a way back. This was the exact situation that Jonghyun had done everything in his power to avoid, this was what neither of them had wanted to happen.

                Yet right here, right now, the scene was just reciting right before the hidden artist’s eyes.

                “…How do you…I…what?!”

                Sungyeol breathed in a bit, stopping there. A minute later he let it out, starting to talk. “I thought about it for a long while last night. Before your brother came. Before you left the bed, actually. I finally confessed to you, right? But you didn’t have anything other than words of hate for me. So I thought, if you hated me so much, why would you even bother with me?”

                He cocked his head over to Myungsoo, who just fell silent and resulted to only listening and not speaking.

                “My father would never pressure somebody into doing something as crazy as that. He loves me, a lot, and he loves his company, the artists, everything. It would’ve worked if you were, like, crazy in love with me or something and would do anything I wanted in order to reach my dreams – okay, I know, we both know it’s not true to bear with me a bit here – but you didn’t. You hate me, that’s something you made obvious enough.

                “The only connection I could get was of you and your parents that absolutely despise you. The only thing you do care about, besides your little brother, is your company. You told me that much. Gaining a hold over the biggest entertainment company in South Korea isn’t gonna do much good for Sungjong, but it would do a ton for the company you’re going to inherit.”

                Sungyeol let his fingers unclench from their fists, now interlocking them and staring at his hands closely. “Being in the business industry is a really shaky road. My dad told me that a long time ago when my mom divorced him. Lee Entertainment wasn’t going anywhere, we were near broke, and the money that was supposed to be used for Sunggyu’s debut was going towards our electricity bill. That’s how bad off we were.

                “But then Sunggyu debuted, and he was a hit.” Sungyeol sighed, sitting back and smiling as if reminiscing the memories of not having to be an idol, but still be rich. “Everybody loved him, and the fact that he came from such a low-down company made everything so much better. He had soul, he had everything needed to be successful.” The boy let his smile down for a second, then a bit later it returned. “After that, my dad let Fei debut. She was amazing, absolutely amazing, beyond words amazing. So in the end, she became just as famous as Sunggyu was.”

                “I remember that,” Myungsoo said, vocalizing his thoughts. “When Fei debuted. Everybody was hooked on her, all the guys at least.”

                “My point exactly,” Sungyeol said, slightly judging for Myungsoo for not having said anything until now – and it was only about his sister. “And after that, I didn’t even know why, I was like…hey, why not become famous? But that flopped, mainly because we were still running low on money. No matter how much publicity Sunggyu and Fei were getting, reality was, they were still rookies from an unknown company.”

                Myungsoo kept silent, up until Sungyeol got fed up with the one-sided talking and just looked up at the younger boy to say something, mostly because he knew the entire story but was only idly standing there, listening as Sungyeol explained what he already knew to him.

                “The rest, I get it, your dad wanted to let you debut. But you weren’t good enough and he didn’t have enough money to get you a singing teacher.” Myungsoo swallowed his anxiousness down, walking a bit over to sit down beside Sungyeol. “That’s where I came in.”

                It was Sungyeol’s turn not to utter a word, he just looked to his left, as if wondering how Myungsoo could even stand to sit next to him.

                But what came next surprised him even more.

                “I wanna hear it,” Myungsoo said slowly, bringing his legs up on the bench, crossing them together and turning to look at Sungyeol.

                “…Hear it? Hear what?”

                “Your singing. Your actual voice.”

                Sungyeol felt his body go stiff and his face morph into an unsure, uncomfortable one. Never, not even once, in his seventeen years, had anybody asked to hear his singing, his real one. Every interview he’d went to, any party he attended, it was made forbidden by the company and by contract to enforce Lee Sungyeol to sing anything live.

                “…Why?” Sungyeol asked, his voice cracking a bit and sounding like he hadn’t spoken in years.

                “I wanna see if it’s true,” the younger boy replied, nodding with every word that came from his mouth. “If you can fall in love with somebody by hearing how they sing.”

“Okay, bye,” Sungjong smiled, saying his goodbyes to Hwayoung before hanging up. “Hyung –“

                He stared around, noticing that neither of them were in the room anymore. Looking over at the closed door, Sungjong came to the conclusion that they ditched him somewhere.

                “I’m a pretty boring person anyways,” he sighed, throwing Sungyeol’s phone back onto the bed. “I wonder where they went…”

Woohyun tilted his head a bit, looking at Sunggyu. “So? What do you think about it?”

                “A-about what?”

                “You know what I’m talking about.” Woohyun paused for a second, sitting upright. “You had to have realized the abnormal feelings I have for you. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have put up with your stupidity from the beginning.”

                Sunggyu was about to backfire with something that doubted his stupidity, but he remember, yeah, he had been stupid.

                And yeah, Woohyun had put up with it, enough before he finally burst. Why, exactly?

                “…I’m sorry.” Something that he’d done a long time ago, but it felt right to say it again.

                “I don’t need you to be sorry,” Woohyun shrugged. “I just want you to know it. That I do…have feelings for you.”

                Sunggyu bit his tongue, trying his best to not say anything stupid. “I…but…I’m a druggie.”

                Woohyun wanted to laugh at the absurdity of that because, one, he wasn’t a druggie, and two, it was his fault that Sunggyu thought that. “We both know that you’re not.”

                “But…I’m going to ruin your career. No, I already did!”

                “It wasn’t your fault.”

                “You’re not supposed to have feelings for me,” Sunggyu solemnly confessed, looking down at the granite countertop. “It makes everything harder. It makes it harder for you to move on and go solo. It makes it harder for you to leave me.”

                “That’s stupid, because I’m never going to leave you. My point of…leaving my previous company was to debut with you. Signing onto Lee Entertainment was only to be in the same group as you. I’m not going to continue on where I left off if I can’t even accomplish that one dream.”

                “…What…” Sunggyu stopped himself from saying again because he knew that it was true, that Woohyun would do anything for him no matter what. It was an idiotic thought, but yes, it was true.

                “So stay with me, okay, Sunggyu? We both know there’s no way I’m going to debut by myself again, so it might just be better to retire from this petty business altogether and be with you.”

                “…You…mean it?”

                “What do you mean, do I mean it? Of course I mean it, I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true.” Woohyun cracked one of those grins, those ones that seemed to say that everything was okay even though nothing was.

                He pushed his hand underneath the table, bumping into a huge wooden block and nearly bruising it before finding Sunggyu’s, clenching onto it as tightly as he could to let any ignorant feelings just disappear.

“Ngh…” Hoya squeezed his eyes shut, letting out a long yawn before finally opening them. “What…”

                He lifted himself up immediately, looking to his right and below him to figure out that he’d fallen asleep.

                But something was weird. A minute ago he was in the room, a minute ago he’d walked into his room to doom. Now, there was an asleep Lime leaned against the wall, her lap having previously been a pillow for him. On her right, he’d noticed, was Yoo Ara, also sleeping.

                Hoya stood up a bit, scratching his back to force away any tingly, weird feelings. He was still in the building, that was a sure fact, and in that same familiar corridor that he’d walked into with Gyuri.

                The room right before him was the one he’d been pushed into, he’d recognize it anywhere, and it was shut close. As if he’d never even walked into it.

                “What’s going –“ Hoya turned back around, looking at the person that was laid at his feet.

                Dongwoo.

                He, like Lime, was also sleeping. The occasional snore fell from his mouth as the older boy’s body finally fell, leaning against the green haired girl’s.

                “Hoya!”

                Whipping his body around, the boy found himself in the arms of a very familiar woman’s – Fei’s.

                “You’re okay! Oh my God, what happened – “ She lifted him away, looking around at the two people. “…How’d I know that they were going to fall asleep? Whatever, are you okay? Do you feel nauseous in any way? Anything? I was in my car, digging for any old aspirins I had, but I couldn’t find any. Are you feeling alright?”

                “I’m fine,” Hoya shook his head, putting a hand up for her to stop because her talking was just making everything worse. “My head hurts. That’s all. And my nose and ears feel a bit clogged up…other than that, I think I just need to lay down.”

                Fei held onto his shoulders, scanning his face carefully to make sure there weren’t any weird signs. She had to hold herself back from saying anything weird or hugging him too tightly, because a combination of the two wouldn’t increase his comfort by anything.

                “Are you sure you’re alright? You don’t feel like you’re going to throw up or anything, right? Or having any weird thoughts?”

                “…I told you I’m fine. I just need to rest a bit, that’s all.”

                The older woman looked at him apologetically, biting her bottom lip. “I’m really sorry, but could you stand it for a bit longer? Ara needs to drive you and Lime and Dongwoo back to the cabin, you’ll be safe there.”

                Hoya looked at her for a second as if that’d wish away his headache. “How about you, then?”

                He swore he saw her side glance to the door on his right, but she just replied, “I have things to take care of. C’mon, let’s get you going then, okay?”

                Nodding absentmindedly, Hoya got out of Fei’s grasp and groaned when he realized his next task.

                Waking up Dongwoo.

                And saying from personal experience this morning, that was one of the things on his list of impossible things to do, coming up right after stapling water to a tree.

Who needs education. Can't I just be the person who puts stickers on fruit like honestly.

fyi story might come to an end in a good amount of chapters. probably won't be as long as YC, hoping not at least.

[[c:10]]